William Faulkner came from the American South and, in his time, wrote a number of novels dealing with themes of patriarchal power and the struggles caused by race. Joe Christmas plays an unusual role in Light in August – in him, Faulkner creates a central character with very few redeeming characteristics. Instead, Christmas is misogynistic, cruel, and more than that, murderous. This essay will examine Faulkner's treatment of race, sex, and gender in Light in August, whether it is simply a reflection of the time of publication or a deeper critique directed at society American from the 1920s and earlier. It will also examine the reasons why Joe Christmas is such a malicious man, such as his upbringing and the people around him. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay To provide historical context, Faulkner wrote Light in August 1932, during "the Southern Renaissance of 1925-1939" (Wittenberg, 1995, p. 148). It was a time, several decades before the civil rights movement of the 1960s, when institutionalized racism was widespread, particularly in the South. An example of society's acceptance of racism and the perception of black Americans as subhuman can be seen in the fact that, across the country, people were "not interested in enforcing desegregation in the schools of the South” (Klarman, 2004, p. 27), long after emancipation. of Slaves in 1863 (NARA). Just as African Americans were marginalized members of society, so were women – expected to be obedient housewives and nothing more (Tames, 1997, p. 46). Nonetheless, there are powerful characters at all ends of the spectrum in Light in August – although he does not accept his "black blood" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 181), it is suggested that Joe Christmas takes the lives of a number of white people. people like Simon McEachern and certainly murders Joanna Burden for “praying for him” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 45). This demonstrates Christmas's nonconformity to the societal expectation that he should be meek and obedient. Among the female characters, Lena Grove and the “masculine” (Clarke, 1989, p. 403) Joanna Burden stand out as women who overcame the patriarchal hierarchy of the time. and gender – white men like Joe Brown are held in higher esteem than black men, despite the fact that Brown is often "town drunk" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 25), a talker and quick to betray Joe Christmas, supposedly. a friend, whenever it comes to money – which also involves race – “accuses the white man and lets the Negro go free” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 41). Women are significantly inferior to men in the hierarchy, weakness and naivety are just some of the intrinsic character flaws attributed to them by Faulkner. Nevertheless, Deborah Clarke points out that the women of Light in August are connected in a way that the men are not, communicating in "a language unknown to them" (Clarke, 1989, p. 399). This shows that there is a clear difference between Christmas's impressions of women and Faulkner's own feelings towards them. Further down the rankings are black men and women. In fact, although the novel has a running theme, there is “not a single significant character who is identifiable as African American” (Wittenberg, 1995, p. 146). This does not necessarily demonstrate disdain for African Americans on Faulkner's part, who instead chooses to focus on the struggles of Christmas, a mixed-race man who is "neither black nor white" (Godden, 1980, p. 240). On the contrary, asWittenberg writes, Faulkner views race as a “linguistic and social construct” (Wittenberg, 1995, p. 146) instead of something that can be simply broken down into black and white – they are too closely linked to Christmas and yet he seemingly rejects both parts of his identity, but is instead filled with self-loathing. So, at Christmas, Faulkner creates a character who can represent both sides of race relations, without needing an explicitly named black character. To emphasize how serious racism was at the time, especially in Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, the townspeople who came to investigate the burning of Joanna Burden's house "believed and hoped" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 117) that she had been raped before her murder. They also choose to believe that this was a crime committed by a “Negro” rather than “a Negro” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 117). This shows that they want their inherent hatred of African Americans to be justified, inventing scenarios only because Burden is ostracized for her "excessive sexuality" (Clarke, 1989, p. 404) involving black men. It also demonstrates a categorization of Black Americans as a whole, a dehumanized mass rather than individuals with free will and thought – they act under the impulse of their “black blood” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 181). In the same spirit, Faulkner evokes the dichotomy of the United States, divided between the “Yankees” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 117) of the north and the peoples of the south. To "casual Yankees" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 117) who live in Jefferson, Burden is considered to have caused her own death, while someone above the Mason-Dixon line may have. considered the victim of a senseless crime. Interestingly, in the minds of the townspeople, the most likely culprit is a black person while the real culprit, Joe Christmas, is “neither black nor white” (Godden, 1980, p. 240). . This confirms that Christmas and Burden are singled out based on their perceived affiliation with other races, however factual that may be. As an example of Joe Christmas's distrust and contempt for women from an early age, Miss Atkins, the racist dietitian who refers to Christmas as a "little nigger bastard" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 52), is described as young and stupid, attributing the "attributes of an adult" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 52), to Christmas when he was only five years old and she thought she had caught him spying. We can see that Faulkner and Christmas consider this to be true since all of this is conveyed to the audience through an objective narrator, capable of describing both the “fury and terror” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 52) of the dietician and the “astonishment, shock, indignation” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 53) of young Christmas when recalling the event. Although being unloved and abused as a child does not automatically translate into the terrible human being Noël grows up to be, we can see that the interactions with Miss Atkins, in an orphanage in which he had never been “waiting three days to be punished” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 53) certainly did not improve his chances of becoming a well-adjusted adult. Even though many of the women in Light in August are seen as weak and unknowingly controlling, Byron Bunch is nevertheless "unmanned" (Clarke, 1989, p. 401) by Lena simply by talking to him, he is "already in love" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 25) from the first conversation. This shows that not all of Faulkner's women are powerless. This is further confirmed when we consider Lena's previous interactions with men: Amstrid, whom we meet in the first chapter – thinks she knows "exactly what Martha [her wife] is going to say" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 8 ) when in contact with men. In fact, hebecomes the object of an attack aimed at all men, “You men […] You are hard men” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 10), showing once again a tacit connection that many female characters in the novel maintain between them. Faulkner also establishes the “foreign language motif” (Clarke, 1989, p. 409) in the speech between Joe Brown and Joe Christmas, who acts as if he “spoke a different language” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 19) of the one Brown knew. Just as there is a division between black and white, there is another between man and woman. The different halves of the novel truly converge in chapter 19 of Light in August during Noel's death at the hands of Percy Grimm. Grimm points out that Christmas will now leave "white women alone" (Faulkner, 1932, p. 187), the mention of race suggesting that Christmas is considered black, it is unacceptable that his crimes were committed by a white man, he there must be separation. This is further supported by the imagery of Christmas being castrated after his death, with the phrase “black blood” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 187) again being used with negative connotations. The fact that he was “repressed” and “like a breath released” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 187) suggests that this was a relief for Christmas – in death he can finally admit his true African American identity that he tried to avoid everything. his life. The “bloody butcher’s knife” (Faulkner, 1932, p. 187) also feminizes Noël, a man who has hated women all his life – Clarke says that blood is also representative of “menstruation” (Clarke, 1989, p. 412). The scene rises and falls through brutal peaks of "dripping blood" (Spenko, 1982, p. 254), troughs of calm contemplation and "peaceful valleys" before culminating in an "incredible crescendo" beyond the " realm of hearing” (Faulkner, 1932, p. All of this serves to captivate the reader and signifies the ups and downs that run through the novel, experienced by both men and women, regardless of race. Conclusion, race and gender in Light in August are both treated the same - no matter what a person's race or gender, Faulkner will give them both positive and negative attributes. As Deborah Clarke says, there is an “uneasy relationship” (Clarke, 1989, p. 413) between the two sexes and races – even if they are entangled with each other, this does not necessarily mean that there will be a bond between two people who share a gender or race. Joe Christmas chooses to disassociate himself from his supposed African-American ancestry, preferring to continue passing as a white man but this ultimately does not save him from the punishment of the white Percy Grimm. As mentioned previously, there are no significant identifiable black characters, but passing comments in the narration suggest that they are peaceful and hardworking. Thus, the depiction of Noel as a partial representative of African Americans does not negatively affect the reader's view of Yoknapatawpha's black citizens. When it comes to gender, Lena Grove is not a weak woman like McEachern's wife, she remains strong and hopeful. the face of his problems, the antithesis of Joe Brown's timid, carefree, disloyal work. In this regard, Brown is also the opposite of Byron Bunch, confused with Brown's alter ego, Lucas Burch, who is loyal and diligent. We can therefore see that there are strong and non-conformist characters, from both races and both sexes. Finally, in Light in August, William Faulkner shows that there is no inherent problem with being black or white, male or female – you are shaped by your own life choices, your upbringing, and the environment in which you find yourself – a progressive morality. for a novel written in the middle of an era of (1995)..